The Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona (MACBA) received 19,000 more visitors in 2012 compared to last year

Barcelona (CNA).- The Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona (MACBA) has increased its number of visitors by 2.8% in 2012 with respect to the previous year. In 2011 the museum received the visit of 690,865 people, while in 2012 this figure grew to 710,435 visitors. The most visited exhibition has been ‘Oferta pública/Public Tender’ by Rita McBride with a total of 188,028 spectators.

According to MACBA, this figure does not include the exhibitions programmed with their own funds at the CaixaForum Madrid, CaixaForum Palma and Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao over the last year, which in total attracted 768,067 more visitors.

As for the origin of the visitors, most of them came from the USA, the UK, France and the Middle East, although an increase in local visitors has been registered thanks to programmes such as the ‘MACBA és/es viu’ (MACBA is/you live it) or ‘MACBA en família’ (MACBA in family), the extended timetable on Friday and Saturday evenings in the summer, the consolidation of the International Museums Night, which itself attracted 9,271 visitors, and the Open Day to celebrate the 25^th Anniversary of the MACBA Foundation, which attracted 5,372 visitors.

This year, a complete activities program is planned with exhibitions by artists like Ahlam Shlibi, Eulàlia Grau, Lawrence Weiner and the presentation of the MACBA collection together with the CaixaForum Barcelona and the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), among others.